Surrealist Landscapes

This is a project that was finished a while back during my maternity leave.  I had posted previously about the beginning of it and then the students finished it with my substitute.  I've only just now gotten around to photographing these and putting them up on Artsonia!

This project was done in alignment with the Common Core.  At the time, students were reading the fantasy novel Spiderwick, so I decided to do a surrealism project with them.  On the first day, I showed studenst examples of Salvador Dali's work, we talked about surrealism/fantasy art, and finally logged onto Switchzoo at the computer lab.  There, students played around and made three different hybrid fantasy animals.  I asked them to print off two animals: one they could keep and one that had to be handed in. At the end of class, I used the following exit slip with them:  At the bottom of your printed page, write your definition of surrealism.  Also, give your new animal an interesting name!

The next class, we looked at more examples of surrealist art.  We looked at floating landscapes, melting clocks, and many more using a Google search on the smartboard.  Then, I set them to work creating their own landscapes that had to incorporate their animal.  Students were also allowed to cut more images out of magazines to add.  The group who colored in pencil started with me, while the other class used marker with my substitute.  I don't really like to let them color with markers because it always looks so streaky, but they actually did a nice job with the markers!